Inside Arafat's Bunker

Under virtual house arrest, the Palestinian leader is playing brave but quietly fretting over his future

By Matt Rees/Ramallah. Monday, Feb. 04, 2002

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    Arafat is trying to fight off the perception of diminishing power by keeping to his old routines--minus the globe-trotting. On the second floor of his sandstone office building, Arafat rises each day and rides for an hour on a stationary bicycle in his bedroom before having a light breakfast at 9 a.m. He's at his desk from 9.30 a.m. until 2 p.m., when he breaks for lunch and takes a nap. In the late afternoon, he paces his office and settles in to read documents and take meetings until 1 a.m. He doesn't bother wearing his trademark Smith & Wesson .357 in his holster or carrying the submachine gun he dramatically toted early in the Aqsa intifadeh. But even this daily regimen is not completely within Arafat's control. Last Sunday he had to stay up all night reading faxed field reports after Israeli troops took over the West Bank town of Tulkarem. In the 15-minute gaps between faxes, Arafat called regional leaders and pleaded for help. But the diplomatic protests were muted, and the Israelis stayed another day before pulling out.

    There would be more diplomacy on Arafat's behalf if international leaders saw him reining in his gunmen. But that has not happened. Instead, Arafat's siege has become the rallying cry for members of his organization to spill the blood of Israeli civilians. On Monday night the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a militia from Arafat's Fatah faction, warned in a statement that "if Israel doesn't lift the siege on Arafat within 24 hours, we will perpetrate another suicide attack within a day." The militants were true to their word. In a meeting room in the main police station in downtown Jerusalem, officers heard shots nearby. As they ran toward the sound, the beepers on their belts all went off at once: "A terrorist is shooting in the Jaffa Street, King George area." By the time they arrived, an off-duty cop had shot the gunman, Fatah activist Said Ramadan, 24. The officers saw Ramadan lying on his back. He raised his head and tried to sit up. Thinking he might try to detonate a bomb, the police opened fire. Ramadan's face was shot away by the volley. Before he died, he had killed two Israelis and wounded 40.

    That militants within Fatah, a secular organization, are imitating the suicide operations of radical Islamic groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad disturbs Israeli security officials, since terrorists bent on dying are so hard to stop. Ramadan was the first Fatah gunman to leave a videotaped "martyrdom" message, a move right out of the Hamas playbook. Because Arafat isn't even trying to restrain the Islamic militants and because his own Fatah is joining in the violence, Israel is experiencing an unprecedented number of terrorist alerts. The Shin Bet security service has an emergency situation room that goes into operation when there's concrete evidence a terror attack is about to take place. It is usually called into use no more than once a day. Shin Bet sources tell TIME they are operating the situation room on average four times a day now.

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